


A Hawk on the Wing

by Setheneran (ladyredms)



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyredms/pseuds/Setheneran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for all of Dragon Age II and mid-game Dragon Age: Inquisition)</p><p>Anders isn't coping very well with Hawke traveling to Fereldan alone. Or at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hawk on the Wing

Anders buried his face against his forearms, pressing down against the table until it grinded his elbows into the wood. Through his robesleeves, it hurt. Stung. The table was rough-hewn and shoddy and he felt every jagged shard of wood along the edge prickling against his chest.

He clenched his fist, catching parchment between his knuckles. The paper crinkled within his palm, and he crushed it. He would have crushed it to powder, had he the strength.

One paper among many - letters, clippings, announcements - all gathered like a nest, piled up on the table in front of him in messy disarray. He couldn’t shake the constant stir of misery, the strain in his gut, the headache pulsing through his head.

_I can’t lose him. I can’t. After everything that’s happened…_

He dragged himself up, gaze moving over the pile of documents under his purview. The Conclave destroyed - the rift in the sky - mages and Templars gone mad - Tevinter magisters assaulting Redcliffe - death and destruction littering the Fereldan and Orlesian countrysides - and Hawke all alone, forging into the darkness.

Anders felt so bloody helpless, reading the news in his huddled safety. It sickened him.

It had been weeks. They'd received Varric's initial letter, explaining Corypheus' return and begging for Hawke to come… and then nothing. Naught but news from Fereldan that grew more and more grim.

Hawke had warned him.

 _“I will not risk your safety with letters.”_ Hawke had cupped Anders’ cheeks and drawn his face close, his touch so gentle and soft one might have never guessed the sheer number of lives he had taken with those hands. _“Varric took enough of a risk already. They want you, Anders, now more than ever. Go to Merril’s old clan - the Dalish will keep you hidden until I return.”_

The Dalish had let him use an aravel for his time there, one of the sleek landships that they were so famed for. It was about the size of a small bedroom, with a goosefeather cot and a thin desk. The rest of the room was full of storage boxes, all shoved to the walls to make room for him. The elves were kind to him, though he figured it was more because of Hawke than himself. The rogue had, after all, taken Merril off their hands.

Not to mention, Anders got the itching feeling that they took some enjoyment out of what happened at Kirkwall.

They held no love for shemlen, he supposed.

Anders had obeyed Hawke, despite how Justice railed at the edges of his consciousness, stirring with discontent. There was always something more to do, always another call to answer. Every moment spent inactive was a moment wasted. It wore on him sometimes, like an unending vibration at the base of his skull that slowly turned him numb.

Sometimes he’d lie awake at night, sweating, unable to sleep. His heartbeat would race and he could do nothing but think of the cruelties around him. Done to him. Justice burned blue behind his eyelids and he struggled to keep still. Hawke always sensed it when it was particularly bad; he'd distract him on those nights. Pleasure and love cut through the fugue around his mind, chasing away those obsessive thoughts, if only for a night.

When Hawke’s hand slipped between his thighs, lightly furred chest flush against the mage’s back and mouth drifting against his ear in tired affection, Justice fell between the cracks of his mind and went silent. Anders mused sometimes that sex embarrassed the spirit, made him recoil - but when he thought that, he thought of the gaunt and death-pale face that Justice had once possessed. His friend.

Was there enough of that man left to feel embarrassment?

Frustrated, Anders struck out. He swiped his arm across the desk, angrily knocking every scrap of paper to the floor. They fluttered like they were drawn into a whirlwind, shooting upwards as they caught the air strangely, then falling down in all different directions. He tried to contain his breathing, tried to relax, listening to the flapping and scraping as the sheets grazed across the floor and found resting places all around him.

His vision blurred softly, and he could see stark lines of blue fracturing the skin on his outspread hand. He looked down, clenching his fist, feeling a fog encroaching over his mind. It was anger - formless and shapeless, burning under his skin and bringing out every emotion hiding at the edges of his mind.

Justice’s effect, most of the time, wasn’t like a different mind taking over. It was like someone putting a hot iron to his skull, boiling the thoughts in his head until they distilled down to their basest forms. All his anger for the Templars, the Circle, the Chantry - emotions he used to struggle with and then bury deep came rising up like sea foam, overwhelming him. Suddenly, he couldn’t ignore them. They were _his own thoughts,_ set on fire, where once he had washed his hands of all the responsibility that came with them and run away.

The spirit brought determination; brought resolve. It was Anders’ anger that poisoned Justice, not the reverse. Hawke always struggled to believe that.

“Maker.”

His voice vibrated, a faint echo of a deeper tone at the edge of his breath. Anders drew his hands together, cupping them, staring at his palms. His skin seeped ghostly tendrils of grey-blue smoke, breath shuddering softly. The release of energy made him feel a little better, but the more he let out, the less control he had.

‘Most of the time,’ after all, meant there were exceptions.

Sometimes, he lost himself to Justice. It still wasn’t the spirit - the man? - he had once known, but a fierce spectre of Vengeance that lashed out without reservation. It was a blind rage that he couldn’t control, a black-out, and more than once he’d come out of it with Hawke standing between him and someone he’d almost killed.

“Anders.” Hawke would say, sharp and calm, hands raised like he were soothing a wild animal. And perhaps he was. “Come back to me, love.”

And Justice would release his control, rather than cut through Hawke.

Anders felt somehow that Justice had labeled Hawke as an ally, in that strange, black and white way the spirit had of thinking. He was one of the few things that could consistently bring Anders into himself again, like Justice had decided Hawke wasn’t to be hurt; that he was useful, or part of the path forward.

The rebel mage wished he could say it was because of his love for the man, but he knew better.

Head aching, Anders let out a growl that was not entirely his own, slamming his fist down against the desk. The heel of his hand left a burnt imprint on the wood, smoke rising softly from the indistinct black shape. He stared down at the rounded mark, sucking in breaths through his teeth.

_Come back to me, love. Please._


End file.
